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| The ways the NRPB has suppressed scientific knowledge, against the public interest. | ||
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This is a quasi-political section, but may be illuminating to members of the public who like to know what goes on behind the scenes in science. It starts with the saga of Bob Becker. Dr Robert Becker is widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of bioelectromagnetics research. He is equally respected for his 1970s stand in forcing the NewYork State Powerline Project which via Court decree demanded a $5 million research investigation into powerline health hazards. In his comprehensive 1990 book on the perils and promise of EMFs, “Cross Currents”, Becker devotes the last few paragraphs of his final Appendix (pp298-304) to an evaluation of the way the EMF issue has been suppressed from public awareness in the US. It is so remarkably similar to the ways this has also occurred in the UK, that I am persuaded to set out here the British parallels. Becker begins by pointing out that “Based solely on calculations, the magic figure of 10 milliWatts per square centimeter was adopted by the air force as the standard for safe exposure. Subsequently the thermal effects concept has dominated policy decisions to the complete exclusion of non thermal effects. While the 10mW/cm2 standard was limited to microwave frequencies, the thermal concept was extended to all other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Unless it heated tissue, electromagnetic radiation was thought to be harmless, so there were no limits placed on exposure to frequencies below microwave. “The military organism was designed on the 10mW standard, and once in place, it had to be defended against the possibility of non thermal effects...This view led to the policy of denying any nonthermal effects from any electromagnetic usage, whether military or civilian”. Becker identifies a number of stratagems used to achieve this aim: 1. “Control over the scientific establishment was maintained by allocating research funds in such a way as to ensure that only approved projects – that is projects that would not challenge the thermal effects standard – would be undertake”.. UK Examples: Funding for British EMF research comes from the MRC, the NRPB, the IEGMP and (a few thousand pounds only each year) from the National Grid’s EMF Biological Trust, controlled by John Male, an ex-Grid employee. The MRC is now headed by such as David Coggon, who is firmly on record as disbelieving any adverse non-thermal effects. He has also been given a large funding by IEGMP, headed by Lawrie Challis, a retired physics professor from Nottingham, who also toes the establishment line. The NRPB’s Zenon Sienkiewicz has carried out a number of biological studies, but only at levels which carefully avoided challenging the thermal concept, or otherwise reported negative findings. Some of these are peer review published, for example “Deficits in spatial learning after exposure of mice to a 50Hz magnetic field”, (1998b) appeared in the BEMS Journal. This study used a 0.75mT field, (75 microTesla) which is far above any magnetic field likely to be found in the environment. Other research had reported deficits at much lower exposure levels (e.g. Lai et al., 1996; Kavaliers et al., 1993). Sienkiewicz too has received a large funding from the IEGMP. Others in receipt of IEGMP money are also largely on record as “disbelievers”, particularly Anthony Barker, who is on the IEE working group and annually declares that no new science has been published causing any grounds for change from the thermal-effects-only policy; and Ray Cartwright, a longstanding supporter of and fundee of the National Grid, for whom he has given occasional and misleading testimonies at Public Enquiries. For a more detailed account see my article in the Ecologist. Both Barker and Cartwright were suitably accoladed with professorships to bolster their academic standing. The money allocated from the IEGMP’s £7 million plus fund to “investigate” possible health hazards from mobile telephony has gone almost entirely into the safe hands of establishment scientists. Only £150,000 of it was allocated to research into base stations, incidentally. For one arguably independent scientist, David de Pomerai from Nottingham whose work showed MW-induced heat shock protein responses in intestinal worms, after allocation of his funding the original project was savagely emasculated, much to de Pomerai’s annoyance. The whole IEGMP saga is a copybook example of Becker’s shrewd analysis over a decade previous. Becker continues by arguing that the support of prominent members of the engineering and biological professions was enlisted. (e.g. Sir William Stewart, Sir Richard Doll, and Colin Blakemore). Scientists were told that nonthermal effects did occur, but that national security objectives required that they be exceptionally well established before they became public knowledge. “Many scientists’ goals were subverted by unlimited grant funding from the military and by easy access to the scientific literature”. 2. “When serious challenges to the thermal effects standard were raised publicly, eminent scientific boards, associations or foundations were provided with lucrative “contracts” to evaluate the state of knowledge of bio-effects of electromagnetic fields. These investigations resulted in the production of voluminous reports”. UK Examples: a) the 1993 NRPB publication responding to the EPA’s in 1990 branding EMFs as a possible carcinogen (toned down by the White House from “a probable human carcinogen”) played down the issue, offering flawed analyses, making important omissions, and indicting the dignity of Sir Richard Doll’s name as head of the Advisory Group. This Advisory Group has since changed more often in direction and composition than the tennis balls at Wimbledon, as its members realise what a bag of worms they are being asked to carry. Fresh balls, please. b) The Stewart Report Here too an eminent and supposedly independent scientist was charged with sanitising the issue, following worldwide publicity when I took the matter of cellphone handset health hazards to a local magistrates Court under Sec. 10 of the Consumer Protection Act. If Stewart had included all the non-thermal research available he could not have come to the over-mild conclusions eventually published. One example is seen with the 1996 Skrunda studies, which appeared in Elsevier’s longstanding, reputable, and peer reviewed Science of the Total Environment. Stewart claimed they couldn’t get hold of a copy of these crucial and careful studies, which report adverse effects on children from exposure to a Russian MW Radiolocator in Latvia. They also claimed the studies were not peer reviewed. This is rubbish, because we offered the Committee a copy, and furthermore they had no difficulty in criticising another study (by Stan Smigielski reporting significantly elevated incidence of cancer among MW-exposed Polish army personnel) which appeared in the same issue of the journal! 3. Becker’s next point: “All these reports (of the establishment review bodies) shared certain characteristics. Scientific data indicating non thermal effects were either ignored or subjected to extensive and destructive review”. UK Examples: The issue of ELF electric fields is dealt with separately. When our study of this topic (Coghill Steward et al., 1996) reported a near five fold incidence of childhood leukaemia in bedplaces where the mean ELF electric field exceeded 20 V/m, the NRPB devoted a whole paragraph in one of their documents to its critical destruction, even though this meant making untrue commentary. At the time I was surprised that my paper had achieved such attention, considering it was only a pilot study. Nevertheless when the UKCCCR electric fields study finally appeared reporting negative findings, its glaring flaws were not commented on. No reasonable scientist in this field accepts that a three minute spot measurement adequately represents childhood bedplace exposure, nor does a 48 hour mean value, of which perhaps only a third of the duration was when the child was actually in bed. The NRPB Con goes the other way and does not mention our 1996 study at all! It does however mention the UKCCCR negative electric field study (Skinner et al., 2002). Another example is that in around 2000 two separately conducted meta-analyses of childhood leukaemia epidemiological studies were published, one by Anders Ahlbom of the Karolinksa and colleagues (including the NRPB’s Nick Day, Jane Skinner, and other establishment worthies), and the other from Sander Greenland, the highly reputable editor of Epidemiology and his co-authors. The latter included our own study in its analysis, the only one in fact from the UK, because the National Grid refused to collaborate with the Greenland group. Greenland et al. therefore contained several more studies than the Ahlbom group’s effort, which excluded our study. However the NRPB Con deliberately made no mention of the Greenland groiup’s meta-analysis, despite its being the more comprehensive of the two. 4. Becker’s next point: “Scientists who persisted in publicly raising the issue of harmful effects from any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum were discredited, and their research grants were taken away”. Professor Denis Henshaw has for some years carried out research into the possibility that corona discharges around powerlines may create ionisation and this in turn may lead to noxious inhalation, particularly downwind of powerlines. More recently he has pointed to the literature on how EMFs suppress melatonin, an oncostatic agent secreted almost exclusively by the brain’s pineal gland. Henshaw’s findings and methodology have been severely attacked and unfairly misrepresented by the NRPB. It remains to be seen if his research funding at Bristol University will be removed. Another casualty is Dr Gerard Hyland, formerly a physics lecturer at Warwick University, who “retired” for there, (actually he was asked to leave) after for some years outspokenly advocating the recognition of non-thermal effects, and now spends much time addressing activist groups concerned about cellphone mast installations. Hyland was a pupil of Herbert Frolich and continues his research into coherent bioeffects via a German academic institute. The complete absence of any independents among those receiving funding from the IEGMP initiative is a further example of how research can be suppressed by starvation. None of the scientists with a positive view of non thermal effects were given any research money, including Alan Preece, Alasdair Philips, Anne Silk and our own laboratory, all of whom submitted proposals. By some error or false feed a Times article claimed I had been appointed as part of the IEGMP funding committee, which brought temporary joy to those still naive enough to believe it! In consequence of this suppression the UK produces little independent EMF health effects research. By way of example there are only two submissions from the UK (apart from our own) out of 200 papers for the forthcoming biennial European Bioelectromagnetics Association Meeting in Budapest, a major event, and even one of these is from an “establishment”source. As present our laboratory is now the only remaining non-aligned independent EMF research establishment in Britain. Becker concludes by describing the US position in 1990: 5. “The Government’s initial complete denial of any non thermal effects was followed by acceptance of some nonthermal effects, although these were characterised as being unimportant and transient. At present the official position is that while there are some nonthermal effects that may be harmful, further study is required before any sudden action is taken. These studies are going on, but all are under the aegis of either the Defense Department or the industry involved”. Comment It seems astonishing to me that in 2003 this is still largely the position in the UK. The research reporting non-thermal effects continues to emerge, often from eastern bloc or non Western sources, and is equally often disparaged by the NRPB. Much of the Chinese and Russian literature remains untranslated, though one good quality review at least has emerged, even though not peer review published, largely due to funding from an uncommitted charity, rather than from any effort by the NRPB or other establishment institutions. One might have thought that by now we would in Britain at least have proceeded to adopt the Chinese rather than the ICNIRP guidelines. All in all, this sorry saga has all the makings of another BSE scandal, though in this battle of suppression the numbers of dead and wounded are far higher: childhood leukaemia, where we found a high correlation with ELF electric field exposure, is growing each year, and is the largest killer of children in this country. Establishment acceptance of nonthermal effects and simple costless advice to keep childrens’ beds away from EMF sources might save many such tragedies. |
